Setting book goals and tracking your writing with the writing log and sprints

Set your book goals

Book Goals keep track of where your book is going: how long it should be, when you want to finish, and how many words a day you need to get there.

To open Book Goals, choose View → Book Goals…, or click the goals area in the bottom bar.

Fill in these fields:

The book in a sentence: a line describing the book. It's for your eyes only.
Stage: Draft, Revising, Complete or Live.
Word target: how long the book should be.
Finish by: a date, written year-month-day, such as 2027-03-01.
Universe: the story world this book belongs to, if it shares one with other books.

Click Done to close the window. Book Goals shows how far along you are and how many words a day you need to finish on time. The bottom bar shows today's word count and your pace.

You can change any of these at any time.

Track your writing in the writing log

The writing log shows how much you have written. Open it with View → Writing Log and Timer, or click today's count in the bottom bar.

The log shows:

your words for today and for this week;
how many days in a row you have written;
your best run;
a map of the last thirteen weeks.

Time a writing session

Use the timer when you want to write for a set length of time without watching the clock.

1. Open the writing log.
2. Under TIME A SESSION, click Open-ended, 15 min, 25 min, 50 min or 60 min.
3. Write. Click Stop when you're done.

Run a word sprint

A sprint is a short push toward a number of words.

1. Open the writing log.
2. Beside Or sprint to, choose a number of words, from 100 to 5,000.
3. Click Start Sprint.

Studio tells you when you reach the number and how long it took.

Leave a note for your next session

Under NEXT TIME, write a line about where you want to pick up tomorrow. When you come back, you won't have to work out where you left off.

What counts toward your words

Pasting text doesn't count as writing. If you change more than 60 words at once, Studio doesn't add that change to today's words, your streak or a sprint. Type or edit in smaller amounts for those changes to count.

Where to see your progress

Your progress shows in three places:

The bottom bar in Studio shows today's word count and your progress toward your word target.
The writing log shows the full picture for today, this week and the last thirteen weeks.
My Books shows a strip with your WRITING STREAK, WORDS TODAY, WORDS THIS WEEK and BEST STREAK, counted across all of your books.